The Hollywood Social Problem Film












The Movies, Race, and Ethnicity
Drugs and Alcohol in the Movies
Labor Themes in the Movies
The Homeless, Hobos, Tramps, and Bums in the Movies
Politics and the Presidency in the Movies and TV
Teenpix (for 1950s exploitation films parading as social issue films)
Cult Films, Exploitation Films (for exploitation films parading as social issue films)

Byars, Jackie. "The Social Problem Films of the 1950s." All that Hollywood allows : re-reading gender in 1950s melodrama Chapel Hill, NC : University of North Carolina Press, 1991. (MAIN: PN1995.9.S47 B9 1991; MOFF: PN1995.9.S47 B9 1991)
Casper, Drew. "Social Problem Film and Courtroom Drama." In: Postwar Hollywood, 1946-1962 Malden, MA : Blackwell, 2007. (MAIN: PN1993.5.U6 C34 2007; MOFF: PN1993.5.U6 C34)
Neve, Brian. Film and politics in America : a social tradition London ; New York : Routledge, 1992. (MAIN: PN1995.9.S6 N46 1992; MOFF: PN1995.9.S6 N46 1992)
Nickel, John. "Disabling African American Men: Liberalism and Race Message Films." Cinema Journal 44:1 (Fall 2004) p. 25-48UC users only
Popísil, Tomás. "The Liberal Message Films of the Late 1940s and the Position of African-Americans." Brno Studies in English: Sborník Prací Filozofické Fakulty Brnenské Univerzity, S: Rada Anglisticá/Series Anglica, vol. 30, no. 10, pp. 179-87, 2004
Roffman, Peter. The Hollywood Social Problem Film: From the Depression to the Fifties. Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 1981. [Main Stack PN1995.R63; Moffitt PN1995.R63]
Sloan, Kay. The loud silents : origins of the social problem film Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1998. [Main Stack PN1995.9.S62.S58 1988; Moffitt PN1995.9.S62.S58 1988]

"A social problem film is a narrative film that integrates a larger social conflict into the individual conflict between its characters. Like many film genres, the exact definition is often in the eye of the beholder, but Hollywood did produce and market a number of topical films in the 1930s and by the 1940s, the boxoffice heyday, the term "social problem" or "message" film was conventional in its usage among the film industry and the public." [Wikipedia]

"[The social problem film] combines social analysis and dramatic conflict within a coherent narrative structure. Social content is transformed into dramatic events and movie narrative adapted to accommodate social issues as story material through a particular set of movie conventions. These conventions distinguish the social problem film as a genre. ...The important distinugishing feature of the genre is its didacticism. It deals with social themes very much on the surface of the dramatic action." [Roffman, 1981]

Films: 1920s and before / 1930s / 1940s / 1950s and 1960s

1920s and before
Hungry Hearts (1922)
Directed by E. Mason Hopper. Cast: E. A. Warren, Rosa Rosanova, Helen Ferguson, Bryant Washburn, A. Budin, Edwin B. Tilton, George Siegmann, Otto Lederer, Bert Sprotte. This film focuses on the trials and challenges of the Levin family who emigrate from Eastern Europe to New York City. Filmed on location on the Lower East Side, this bittersweet classic captures the hopes and hardships of Jewish immigrants in the New World. Based on the book by Anzia Yezierska. 80 min. 999:2341
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Brownlow, Kevin. ""Hungry Hearts": A Hollywood Social Problem Film of the 1920s." Film History, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1987), pp. 113-125UC users only

Regeneration (1915)
Directed by Raoul Walsh. Cast: Rockliffe Fellowes, Anna Q. Nilsson, William Sheer, John McCoy, H. McCoy, James Marcus, Maggie Weston, Carl Harbaugh. Follows the rise of a child of the slums from impoverished orphan at age ten to successful Bowery hoodlum at twenty-five. On the vice-ridden streets of New York, however, he rediscovers his forgotten innocence through the encouragement of Mamie Rose, the proprietress of a downtown mission, but must resist the influences of his colleagues to whom he is bound by criminal codes of honor. Based on the book My Mamie Rose: The Story of My Regeneration by Owen Kildare. 72 min. DVD DVD 4948
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Weisenfeld, Judith. "The Silent Social Problem Film: Regeneration (1915)." In: Catholics in the movies / edited by Colleen McDannell. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2008. (Main (Gardner) Stacks PN1995.9.C35 C38 2008)

Traffic in Souls (1913)
Directed by George Loane Tucker. Cast: Jane Gail, Matt Moore, Ethel Grandin, Fred Turner. Produced when social problem dramas were popular and co-financed by reform groups, this film is set against the white slavery rackets of the 1910s. Purportedly based on findings of "the John D. Rockefeller White Slavery Report and the investigation of the Vice Trust by District Attorney Whitman," the melodrama is skillfully crafted to evoke the feel of "true crime" in the Victorian era, like the pages of the National Police Gazette brought vividly to life. The film was reportedly screened before female immigrants at Ellis Island as a caution to the dangers of the New World. Special DVD feature: Optional audio essay soundtrack by Shelley Stamp ; "The call of the city" / (Harry Beaumont, director) ; music, Rodney Sauer (ca. 12 min.) 90 min. DVD 9992; vhs 999:3608
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Diffee, Christopher. "Sex and the City: The White Slavery Scare and Social Governance in the Progressive Era." American Quarterly, vol. 57, no. 2, pp. 411-37, June 2005 UC users only
Lindsey, Shelley Stamp. ""Oil upon the Flames of Vice": The Battle over White Slave Films in New York City." Film History 9:4 (1997) p. 351-364 UC users only
Stamp, Shelley. "Is Any Girl Safe? Motion Pictures, Women's Leisure, and the White Slave Scare." In: Movie-struck girls : women and motion picture culture after the nickelodeon Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 2000. (Main Stack PN1995.9.W6.S75 2000; PFA PN1995.9.W6.S75 2000)
Whissel, Kristen. "Regulating Mobility: Modernity, Traffic, and Feature-length Narrativity in Traffic in Souls." Camera Obscura, Vol 39, Spring 2002 UC users only

Treasures from American Film Archives III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934.
Forty-eight movies that helped change America. During the first decades of the 20th century no issue was too controversial for movies ... from prohibition to abortion, unions, atheism, the vote for women, worker safety, juvenile justice, homelessness and immigration, these films became the catalyst for social change. Films are from five major film archives: the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. DVD 8670

Program 1, The City Reformed The black hand / producer, Francis J. Marion ; director, Wallace McCutcheon (1906, 11 min.) -- How they rob men in Chicago / producer/director, Wallace McCutcheon (1900, 25 sec.) -- The voice of the violin / director, D.W. Griffith (1909, 16 min.) -- The usurer's grip / director, Bannister Merwin ; writers, Theodora Huntington, Arthur H. Ham (1912, 15 min.) -- From the submerged / director/writer, Theodore Wharton (1912, 11 min.) -- Hope: a Red Cross seal story / director, Charles J. Brabin ; writer, James Oppenheim (1912, 14 min.) -- The cost of carelessness / writer, Eugene C. Clarke (1913, 13 min.) -- Lights and shadows in a city of a million / produced by the Ford Motor Company (1920, 7 min.) -- 6,000,000 American children ... are not in school / producer, Lewis J. Selznick (1922, 2 min.) -- The soul of youth / director, William Desmond Taylor ; writer, Julia Crawford Ivers (1920, 80 min.) -- Excerpts from: Saved by the Juvenile Court / writer, George Creel (1919, 4 min.) -- A call for help from Sing Sing! / producer, William Randolph Hearst (1934, 3 min.)

Program 2: New Women Kansas saloon smashers / directors, George S. Fleming, Edwin S. Porter (1901, 1 min.) -- Why Mr. Nation wants a divorce / directors, George S. Fleming, Edwin S. Porter (1901, 2 min.) -- Trial marriages / producer/director, Francis J. Marion (1907, 12 min.) -- Manhattan trade school for girls / George Eastman House (1911, 16 min.) -- The strong arm squad of the future /Mutual Film Corp. (ca. 1912, 1 min.) -- A lively affair / cast, Mabel Van Buren (ca. 1912, 7 min.) -- A suffragette in spite of himself / director/writer, Bannister Merwin (1912, 8 min.) -- On to Washington (1913, 80 sec.) -- Hazards of Helen: Episode 13: Escape on the fast freight / producer, Paul C. Hurst ; directors, Helen Holmes, Leo Maloney ; writer, Edward Matlack (1915,13 min.) -- Where are my children? / producers/directors, Lois Weber, Phillips Smalley ; writer, Lois Weber (1916, 65 min.) -- Courage of the commonplace / directors, Rollin S. Sturgeon ; writer, William E. Wing (1919, 13 min.) -- Poor Mrs. Jones! / director, Raymond Evans (1926, 46 min.) -- Offers herself as a bride for $10,000 [newsreel] / producer, William Randolph Hearst (1931, 2 min.)

Program 3: Toil and Tyranny Uncle Sam and the Bolsheviki-I.W.W. rat / Ford Motor Comp. [political cartoon] (ca. 1919, 40 seconds) -- The crime of carelessness / director, Harold M. Shaw ; writer, James Oppenheim ; cast, Mabel Trunnelle, Barry O'Moore, Bigelow Cooper (1912, 14 min.) -- Who pays? : Episode 12: Toil and tyranny / director, Harry Harvey ; writers, William Ritchey, Henry King (1915, 35 min.) -- Labor's reward (surviving reel) / American Federation of Labor ; producer, John J. Manning (1925, 13 min.) -- Listen to some words of wisdom / Hearst Metrotone News (1930, 2 min.) -- The godless girl / director, Cecil B. DeMille ; writer, Jeanie Macpherson ; cast, Lina Basquette, George Duryea, Marie Prevost, Noah Berry, Eddie Quillian, Mary Jane Irving (1928, 128 min.)

Program 4: Americans in the Making Emigrants landing at Ellis Island (1903, 2 min.) -- An American in the making / director/photographer, Carl L. Gregory ; cast, Harry Benham, Ethyle Cooke (1913, 15 min.) -- Ramona: a story of the white man's injustice to the Indian / director, D.W. Griffith ; photographer, G. W. Bitzer ; adapted from the novel by Helen Hunt Jackson ; cast, Mary Pickford, Henry B. Walthall (1910, 16 min.) -- Redskin / director, Victor Schertzinger ; writer, Elizabeth Pickett ; cast, Richard Dix, Gladys Belmont, Tully Marshall (1929, 82 min.) -- The united snakes of America [animated] / Ford Motor Co. (ca. 1917, 80 sec.) -- Uncle Sam donates for liberty loans [animated] / Ford Motor Co. (1919, 75 sec.) -- 100% American / director, Arthur Rosson ; cast, Mary Pickford, Loretta Blake, Monte Blue (1918, 14 min.) -- Bud's recruit / producer/writer, Judge Willis Brown ; director, King Vidor ; cast, Wallis Brennan, Robert Gordon (1918, 25 min.) -- The reawakening / Ford Motor Co. (1919, 10 min.) -- Eight Prohibition newsreels / producer, William Randolph Hearst: Capital stirred by biggest hooch raid (1923) ; Behind the scenes with the bootleggers (1926) ; More bad news for the thirsty (1930) ; Hoover Board's Dry Law report stirs nation (1931) ; Some opinions on Hoover Board's Dry Law report (1931) ; Dry agents still on the job (1932) ; First repeal gin shipped (1933) ; Repeal brings wet flood! (1933) (13 min.)

A Drunkard's Reformation. (1909)
Directed by D.W. Griffith. "A drinking man arrives home, late and sozzled as usual. His wife reminds him that he promised to take their child to a play. The play proves to be a morality tale about the evils of drink; he sees the parallels in his own life and swears off the demon brew." [Internet Movie Database] 999:2775; VHS copy 2: 999:593
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

What Drink Did(1909)
Director, D.W. Griffith; Cast: David Miles, Florence Lawrence. A man leaves his wife and two daughters for work in a carpentry shop. At work, he initially refuses a beer with lunch, then gives in. After work, two friends take a little while to convince him to go for a refreshing malt beverage, then to have another and another. Meanwhile, the family waits. He arrives home late and abusive. The next day, hung over, he takes much less convincing to have the drinks; he's gone so long that his wife sends a daughter looking for him. She eventually finds him, can't convince him to return home, goes home, sees her mother's distress, and returns to the bar. This time, her father gets more abusive, a fight ensues, a shot is fired, and tragedy strikes. vhs 999:593; vhs 999:2775
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

1930s

American Madness (1932)
Directed by Frank Capra. Cast: Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Gavin Gordon, Constance Cummings. During the height of the Great Depression a populist bank president, ruined by an unscrupulous bank officer who orchestrates a robbery of the bank to clear his huge gambling debts, is saved from financial ruin by his small depositors. A notable example of the type of "social problem film" that would later either be disallowed or sugar-coated under the Production Code. 76 min. DVD 7188; vhs 999:2708
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Black Legion (1936)
Directed by Archie L. Mayo. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Dick Foran, Erin O'Brien Moore, Ann Sheridan. "Frank Taylor is an average hard-working Joe in a machine shop with ambitions to become foreman. When the job opens, it is given to Joe Dombrowski, a Polish-American immigrant who spends his free time reading technical books on the workings of a drill press rather than socializing with other workers. Frank becomes disgruntled and is easily recruited by a co-worker to join the Black Legion, a secretive hate group similar to the Ku Klux Klan, which appeals to the xenophobic fears of its members and uses violence to intimidate foreign-born Americans. When Frank and other black-hooded Legionaires burn out Dombrowski's chicken farm, the frightened family leaves town, opening up the foreman's job again. When Legion business begins to occupy more and more of Frank's time and energy both in the factory and at night, it soon costs him his job and ultimately his marriage as it leads him toward tragedy." [IMDB] 80 min. DVD X127
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Damaged Lives (1933)
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer. Cast: Diane Sinclair, Lyman Williams, George Irving, Almeda Fowler, Jason Robards. A rich young man catches syphilis as the result of a wanton night on the town with a rich floozy and passes it on to his wife. Special features: Short subject on venereal disease "The Innocent Party" (1959 - 17 min.) from the Kansas State Board of Health. 53 min. DVD 7595
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Dead End (1937)
Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, The Dead End Kids, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Allen Jenkins. On the mean streets on New York's Lower East Side, Drina hopes to save her brother from a life of crime. But notorious hoodlum Baby Face Martin has come back to his old haunts looking for trouble and threatening to drag the boy down with him. Drina turns to her childhood friend Dave for help. But can he stop Martin without becoming just like him? This film was the inspiration for the series of films featuring the Dead End Kids. 92 min. DVD 3625; DVD 3327; VHS 999:14
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Springhall, John. "Censoring Hollywood: Youth, Moral Panic and Crime/Gangster Movies of the 1930s." The Journal of Popular Culture Volume 32 Issue 3 Page 135-154, Winter 1998 UC users only

Gabriel Over the White House (1933)
Directed by Gregory LaCava. Cast: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore. United States President Judson Hammond, a corrupt politician, is visited by the Angel Gabriel during recuperation from a near-fatal automobile accident. President Hammond miraculously becomes virtuous, although his zeal for reform is as misguided as his previous indifference was destructive. 78 min. 999:3420
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Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Directed by John Ford. Cast: Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin. The migration of the Joad family to California from their dust-bowl farm in Oklahoma during the Great Depression. c1987. 100 min. DVD 2434; vhs 999:508
Credits and information from the Internet Movie Database

Fury (1936)
Director, Fritz Lang. Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott. A once decent man becomes ruthless and bitter when he's falsely accused of a crime and becomes a target for a lynch mob. He escapes, but refuses to let his survival be known, so his attackers can be charged with murder. 92 min. DVD 3808; vhs 999:722
Credits and information from the Internet Movie Database

Heroes for Sale (1933)
Director, William A. Wellman. Cast: Richard Barthelmess, Aline MacMahon, Loretta Young, Gordon Westcott, Robert Barrat. One of the "social conscience" films of the 1930s, this tells the story of Tom Holmes whose return home as a wounded morphine-addicted World War I doughboy is just the beginning of a chain of woes involving joblessness, the building and loss of a successful business and unjust imprisonment. But no matter how many times he's knocked down, he always gets back up... a tough hero for a tough time. 71 min. 999:3311
Credits and information from the Internet Movie Database

I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis, Preston Foster, Allen Jenkins. An itinerant ex-soldier is sentenced to a chain gang after he is wrongly implicated in a hold-up. An early social protest film based on a true story, the film helped initiate reform of the prison system. DVD 3924; vhs 999:61
Credits and other information from the Internet Movie Database

Perreault, Jeanne. "Chain Gang Narratives and the Politics of 'Speaking For'." Biography-An Interdisciplinary Quarterly. 24(1):152-71. 2001 Winter UC users only

The Mayor of Hell (1933)
Directed by Archie Mayo. Cast: James Cagney, Madge Evans, Arthur Byron, Allen Jenkins, Dudley Digges, Frankie Darro. Politicos award gangster Patsy Gargan a cushy job as a honcho at a woefully run boys reform school-- no experience necessary, no expectations, no problems. But firebrand Patsy runs up against plenty of problems. He sees something in the kids-- himself. He, too, was raised in the slums. And he decides to defy everyone to give the kids opportunities he never had. Yet all the good Patsy does could collapse when he missteps into his life of crime. Special features: Commentary by film historian Greg Mank; Warner night at the movies 1933; Short subjects gallery: vintage newsreel, musical short "The audition," classic cartoon "The organ grinder," theatrical trailers. 90 min.DVD X135
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Our Daily Bread (1934)
Directed by King Vidor. Cast: Tom Keene, Karen Morley, Barbara Pepper, Addison Richards. Depression movie about a collective farm and its development as a rural community of the unemployed. The unemployed portrayed include a jobless city couple, a Swedish farmer and his family, and other victims of the industrial-financial collapse. 1984. 100 min. DVD 691; vhs 999:65
Credits and information from the Internet Movie Database

Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
Directed by William A. Wellman. Cast: Frankie Darro, Rochelle Hudson, Dorothy Coonan, Sterling Holloway, Arthur Hohl, Grant Mitchell, Claire McDowell. At the bottom of the depression, Tom's mother has been out of work for months when Ed's father loses his job. Not to burden their parents, the two high school sophomore's decide to hop the freights and look for work. Wherever they go, there are many other kids just like them, so Tom, Ed and now Sally stick together. They camp in places like 'Sewer City' as long as they can until the local authorities run them off. Lots of events happen to them including a rape by a train brakeman (pre-code stuff.) They travel all over the Midwest and when they finally reach New York they've become hardened and weary, and are no longer kids. 69 min. DVD 9378
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Klein, G. "Wellman's 'Wild boys of the road': the rhetoric of a depression movie." Velvet Light Trap nr 15 (Autumn 1975); p 2-6

1940s
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Directed by William Wyler. Cast: Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Hoagy Carmichael, Virginia Mayo and Harold Russell. Three returning WWII veterans face problems as they attempt to pick up the threads of their previous lives. One of the central characters in the film is played by Harold Russell, a vet who had lost both arms in the war. 170 min. DVD 2865; vhs 999:114
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Crossfire. (1947)
Directed by Edward Dmytryk. Cast: Robert Young, Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Paul Kelly, Sam Levene, Jacqueline White, Steve Brodie, George Cooper, Richard Benedict, Richard Powers, William Phipps, Lex Barker, Marlo Dwyer. This intense thriller was shot entirely with a style reminiscent of expressionism. A Jew is murdered in a New York hotel, and three ex-soldiers are suspected. Hollywood's first strong statement against anti-semitism. (Interestingly, the original script of Crossfire concerned the murder of a homosexual; 1940's Hollywood apparently found it more palatable to deal with anti-semitism than homophobia). Based on Richard Brook's novel, The Brick Foxhole. Special DVD features: Exclusive behind-the-scenes retrospective on the making of Crossfire and interview with director Edward Dmytryk. 86 min. DVD 4115; vhs 999:1027
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Force of Evil (1948)
Directed by Abraham Polonsky. Cast: John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Beatrice Pearson, Roy Roberts, Marie Windsor. A racketeer's lawyer finds that his boss has found a way to bankrupt New York's numbers banks but gets wedged between the numbers racket and a new prosecutor's anti-crime campaign. 82 min. DVD 3311; vhs 999:1859
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Gentleman's Agreement (1947)
Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield, Celeste Holm, Anne Revere, June Havoc, Albert Dekker, Jane Wyatt, Dean Stockwell. A writer who is assigned to do a magazine series on anti-Semitism decides to pose as a Jew, and soon discovers what it is like to be a victim of religious intolerance. Special DVD features: Audio commentary by Celeste Holm, June Havoc and film critic Richard Schickel; AMC Backstory episode: "Gentleman's agreement"; 2 Fox Movietone newsreels; still gallery; theatrical trailer. 118 min. 999:987
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Home of the Brave (1949)
Directed by Mark Robson. Cast: Lloyd Bridges, James Edwards, Frank Lovejoy, Douglas Dick, Steve Brodie, Jeff Corey. For black GI, Peter Moss, the war never ends. Paralyzed from the waist down, he wages a battle against horrifying memories of the treacherous undergrowth of South Pacific jungles, of Japanese snipers, and the virulent racism of his soldier comrades. 86 min. 999:3670
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Norden, Martin F. "The Racism-Ableism Link in Home of The Brave and Bright Victory" Film & History May1990, Vol. 20 Issue 2, p26-36, 11p UC users only
Wallace, Michele. "Race, Gender and Psychoanalysis in Forties Film: Lost Boundaries, Home of the Brave and The Quiet One." In: Black American cinema / edited by Manthia Diawara. New York : Routledge, 1993. (Main Stack PN1995.9.N4.B45 1993; Moffitt PN1995.9.N4.B45 1993; PFA PN1995.9.N4.B45 1993)

Intruder in the Dust (1949)
Directed by Clarence Brown. Cast: David Brian, Claude Jarman, Jr., Juano Hernandez, Porter Hall, Elizabeth Patterson, Charles Kemper, Will Geer. This film is considered one of the most outstanding films about racial tension. It tells the story of a black man in a small Mississippi town who is accused of murdering a white man known to be his adversary. He makes no attempt to defend himself to avoid being lyunched, until a young white boy persuades his lawyer uncle to help find the real killer. Based on the novel by William Faulkner. 87 min. 999:2278
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Degenfelder, E. Pauline. "The Film Adaptation of Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust." Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 1. 1973. pp: 138-48.

Lost Boundaries (1949)
Director, Alfred L. Werker. Cast: Beatrice Pearson, Mel Ferrer, Susan Douglas, Canada Lee, Richard Hylton. Based on true events surrounding a light-skinned black family who pass for white in a New Hampshire town. Dr. Scott Carter is unable to secure a job as a physician because of his race so he decides "For one year of his life" to pass as a white man, but the one year becomes twenty. Eventually he and his family must confront the racism of the idyllic New Hampshire town he's served for decades. Based on the book by William Lindsay White. 99 min. DVD X1843; vhs 999:1769
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McGehee, Margaret T. "Disturbing the Peace: Lost Boundaries, Pinky, and Censorship in Atlanta, Georgia, 1949-1952." Cinema Journal. Fall 2006. Vol. 46, Iss. 1; p. 23 (29 pages) UC users only
Weisenfeld, Judith. ""Why Didn't They Tell Me I'm a Negro?": Lost Boundaries and the Moral Landscape of Race." In: Hollywood be thy name : African American religion in American film, 1929-1949 Berkeley : University of California Press, c2007. (MAIN: PN1995.9.N4 W45 2007)

Lost Weekend (1945)
Directed by Billy Wilder. Cast: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen. A would-be writer's dissatisfaction with his life leads him on a three-day binge. This film gives an uncompromising look at the devestating effects of alcoholism. 100 min. DVD 535; vhs 999:433
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The Mortal Storm (1940)
Directed by Frand Borzage. Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Robert Young, Frank Morgan. On the same day that Prof. Roth celebrates his birthday, Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany. This causes a tragic rift among the guests at the professor's party as loyalties are questioned, innocent people are brutalized and politics come between Roth's daughter, Freya, and her fiance. With all else lost, Freya finds herself falling in love with an old friend, but their only hope for a future together is a perilous escape to freedom across the Austrian border. 100 min. 999:2385
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Mr. Skeffington (1944)
Directed by Vincent Sherman. Cast: Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Walter Abel, Richard Waring, George Coulouris, Marjorie Riordan. Dealing openly with anti-Semitism and Nazi atrocities, the story spans World War I, Prohibition and the preliminary volley of World War II. Fanny thrives on the adulation of countless suiters before and after she marries Job Skeffington. Ravaged by age and illness, Fanny clings to Job's promise that "a woman is beautiful only when she is loved." 144 min. DVD 4064
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Pinky (1949)
Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters, William Lundigan. Pinky, a black woman who works as a nurse in Boston, finds that she is able to pass for white. Afraid her true heritage will be discovered, she leaves her white fiancee and returns home to Mississippi where she helps her grandmother care for her employer, an imperious plantation owner. When she names Pinky heiress to her estate, the community rises in resentment triggering a-sensational court trial. Subject of a landmark Supreme Court case in film censorship, this moving story became itself a battle for human rights. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1949. Based on the novel 'Quality' by Cid Ricketts Sumner. 102 min. DVD 5064; vhs 999:1043
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The Snake Pit. (1948)
Directed by Anatole Litvak. Cast: Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Glenn Langan. A woman finds herself in a state mental institution and must spend several months under the care of her compassionate doctor before she can face the troubling secrets of her past and be cured. Special DVD features: Documentary by film historian and author Aubrey Solomon; movietone news: "N.Y. film critics honor Olivia de Havilland," "National Magazines Make Film Awards," "Showmen Honor" "The Snake Pit," Special film award is presented for "The Snake Pit," "Motion Picture Academy Awards film 'Oscars'"; still gallery; theatrical trailer. 108 min. DVD 7223; vhs 999:922
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Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Directed by Preston Sturges. Cast: Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake, Robert Warwick, William Demarest, Margaret Hayes, Porter Hall, Franklin Pangborn, Eric Blore. A successful Hollywood director disguises himself as a bum and sets off to see America from the bottom up. In the midst of the brutality and despair, he makes a valuable discovery--that what the downtrodden need most is laughter. 91 min. DVD 6592; vhs 999:358
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Preston Sturges bibliography

1950s and 1960s
Bad Day at Black Rock (1954)
Directed by John Sturges. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne Francis, Dean Jagger, Walter Brennan, John Ericson, Ernest Borgnine, Lee Marvin, Russell Collins, Walter Sande. "Bad Day at Black Rock is both a tightly-written, suspenseful, dramatic action film (with film noirish qualities) and a western. On the surface, this American film classic is concerned with the themes of individual integrity, group conformity and complacency, and civic responsibility. It can also be seen as a powerful, allegorical indictment of the Hollywood blacklist, created during the climate of suspicion and fear of the 1950s McCarthy era. The message of director John Sturges' taut and influential film can be interpreted with different levels of meaning, but predominantly as the tense portrayal of a one-armed stranger who intrusively has arrived in a half-forgotten desert town filled with ruffians. Over a twenty-four hour period, he finds himself unwelcome and facing several ominous characters, animosity, collective guilt, hypocrisy, and bigotry. The film builds suspense by withholding information about the visitor's mysterious mission, and by creating a who-dun-it mystery regarding the hostile town's secret. Eventually, he learns the town's dark secret, and fulfills the promise he made to present a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism to the farming father of a Japanese wartime buddy who had saved his life in World War II on the battlefields of Italy." [Filmsite] 81 min. DVD 3926; vhs 999:745
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Black Like Me (1964)
Directed by Carl Lerner. Cast: James Whitmore, Will Geer, Roscoe Lee Browne. A dramatization of the true story of a white writer in the early 1960's who chemically changed the color of his skin in order to experience life as a black man in the South. Based on the book by John Howard Griffin (Moffitt E185.61.G8; Main Stack E185.61.G75). 107 min. 999:2729
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Blackboard Jungle (1955)
Directed by Richard Brooks. Cast: Glenn Ford, Anne Francis, Louis Calhern, Margaret Hayes, Sidney Poitier, Vic Morrow. Film about life in an inner city high school in the 50's that was the first to utilize a rock 'n' roll soundtrack. A dedicated young teacher soon loses his idealism when he has to deal with the tensions that threaten to destroy his classroom. DVD 3821; vhs 999:973
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The Defiant Ones (1958)
Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier star in Stanley Kramer's groundbreaking film that tears into the problem of racial hatred. The plot centers on these two convicts fleeing a chain gang in the deep South. 1 hour 37 min. DVD 4533; vhs 999:972
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"Defiant Ones" In: Film scripts. Edited by George P. Garrett, O. B. Hardison, Jr. [and] Jane R. Gelfman. New York, Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971. (Main Stack PN1997.A1.G18)

Frank, Micheline Klagsbrun. "Unchained: Perspectives on Change." Journal of Popular Film & Television. Fall 1990. Vol. 18, Iss. 3; p. 122 (8 pages)UC users only
Kelley, Samuel L. The evolution of character portrayals in the films of Sidney Poitier, 1950-1978 (NEWS: MICROFICHE.6030.Unit 98)
Keyser, Lester J. The cinema of Sidney Poitier : the black man's changing role on the American screen. San Diego, [Calif. : A. S. Barnes, c1980 (MAIN: PN2287.P57 .K4)
Marill, Alvin H. The films of Sidney Poitier Secaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, c1978. (MAIN: PN2287 .P57M3)

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Directed by Stanley Kramer. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Hepburn, Katharine Houghton. Joanna, the caucasian daughter of a publisher, Matthew Drayton, and his patrician wife, Christina, returns home with her new fiance, John, a distinguished black doctor. Christina's mother accepts her daughter's decision to marry John, but Matthew is shocked by this interracial union, and the doctor's parents are equally dismayed. In this film both families are forced to examine their respective levels of racial intolerance. 108 min. DVD 2318; vhs 999:718
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Kelley, Samuel L. The evolution of character portrayals in the films of Sidney Poitier, 1950-1978 (NEWS: MICROFICHE.6030.Unit 98)
Keyser, Lester J. The cinema of Sidney Poitier : the black man's changing role on the American screen. San Diego, [Calif. : A. S. Barnes, c1980 (MAIN: PN2287.P57 .K4)
Levine, Andrea. "Sidney Poitier's Civil Rights: Rewriting the Mystique of White Womanhood in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and In the Heat of the Night." American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography, vol. 73, no. 2, pp. 365-86, June 2001.
Marill, Alvin H. The films of Sidney PoitierSecaucus, N.J. : Citadel Press, c1978. (MAIN: PN2287 .P57M3)

The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
Directed by Otto Preminger. Cast: Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak. An ex-convict recovering from heroin addiction returns to the Chicago slums and struggles to become a musician, but his former "business associates" have other ideas. Based on the novel by Nelson Algren. 119 min. DVD 4148
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Prono, Luca. "Whatever Happened to Nelson Algren? Otto Preminger's Adaptation of The Man with the Golden Arm." Links and Letters, vol. 6, pp. 61-72, 1999
Sarris, Andrew. "Otto Preminger: shattering taboos, he pointed the way to rebel filmmaking." American Film 14.n8 (June 1989): 69(5).
Simmons, Jerold. "Challenging the Production Code: The Man with the Golden Arm.(RETROSPECTIVES)(Critical Essay)." Journal of Popular Film and Television 33.1 (Spring 2005): 39(10). UC users only

No Way Out (1950)
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Cast: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier. When a young African-American doctor operates on two white brothers brought in for gunshot wounds, it sets off a chain of violent confrontations between a vicious psychopath, his gang and the black community. 106 min. DVD 7667; vhs 999:2450
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On the Waterfront (1954)
Directed by Elia Kazan. Cast: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, Eva Marie Saint. Mob-connected union boss Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb) rules the waterfront with an iron fist. The police know that he's been responsible for a number of murders, but witnesses play deaf and dumb ("plead D & D"). Washed-up boxer Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) has had an errand-boy job because of the influence of his brother Charley, a crooked union lawyer (Rod Steiger). Witnessing one of Friendly's rub-outs, Terry is willing to keep his mouth shut until he meets the dead dockworker's sister Edie (Eva Marie Saint). "Waterfront priest" Father Barry (Karl Malden) tells Terry that Edie's brother was killed because he was going to testify against boss Friendly before the crime commission. Because he could have intervened, but didn't, Terry feels somewhat responsible for the death. When Father Barry receives a beating from Friendly's goons, Terry is persuaded to cooperate with the commission. [description from All-Media Guide]c1985. 108 min. DVD 899; VHS 999:18
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Pressure Point (1962)
Directed by Hubert Cornfield. Cast: Sidney Poitier, Bobby Darin, Peter Falk, Carl Benton Reid. A prison doctor is charged with treating a hate filled young man who's been jailed for sedition. As he probes the patient's nightmares, the psychiatrist realizes his twisted vision masks a lust for violence. But the inmate has become a model prisoner, and unless the doctor can convince officials that he's daugerous, he'll soon be back on the street. 89 min. DVD 4827
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Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Directed by Nicholas Ray. Cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen. The story of a 1950's teenager's efforts to grow up as he confronts his ineffectual parents and copes with the anguish of being a "new boy" at school. DVD 5394 special features (Disc one): Commentary by Douglas L. Rathgeb ; trailer. (Disc two): 50th-anniversary documentary "Rebel without a cause: defiant innocents" ; vintage documentary "James Dean remembered" ; additional scenes (no sound) ; 3 segments from the Warner Bros. presents television series including James Dean's "Drive Safely" commercial spot ; rare screen tests ; wardrobe tests. DVD 73 special features: behind-the-scenes documentary Rediscovering a rebel, 3 behind-the-cameras documentaries, interactive menus, production notes, theatrical trailers, scene access. DVD 5394; DVD 73; vhs 999:35
Information about this film from the Internet Movie Database

Salt of the Earth. (1954)
Directed by Herbert J. Biberman. A semidocumentary of the year-long struggle by Mexican-American zinc miners in New Mexico. When an injunction is issued against the workers, the wives take up the battle with a fury, leaving the husbands to care for home and children. 94 min. DVD 682; VHS 999:266
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A Crime to Fit the Punishment (documentary on the making of Salt of the Earth) Video/C 9289

Storm Warning (1951)
Director, Stuart Heisler. Cast: Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Steve Cochran. A school teacher visiting relatives in an unnamed small town happens to witness the beating death of a man at the hands of the KKK. She soon discovers that the whole town is controlled by this vigilante group, and that her loutish brother-in-law is one of the group's members. The D.A. (Ronald Reagan) is the man who breaks the stranglehold of the hooded terrorists--through the simple expedient of walking into one of their meetings and calmly identifying each of them by name. 93 min. DVD X201
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12 Angry Men (1957)
Directed by Sidney Lumet. Cast: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeney, George Voskovec, Robert Webber. Classic courtroom drama depicts a jury of men who must decide the fate of a teenage boy who has murdered his abusive father. The jurors are from all walks of life, and bring with them their own opinions, prejudices, fears, and personal demons. 97 min. DVD 3188; vhs 999:644
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